Background: Management and traceability of biospecimen preanalytical variations are necessary to provide effective and efficient interconnectivity and interoperability between Biobanks.Methods: Therefore, the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories Biospecimen Science Working Group developed a "Standard PREanalytical Code" (SPREC) that identifies the main preanalytical factors of clinical fluid and solid biospecimens and their simple derivatives.Results: The SPREC is easy to implement and can be integrated into Biobank quality management systems and databases. It can also be extended to nonhuman biorepository areas. Its flexibility allows integration of new novel technological developments in future versions. SPREC version 01 is presented in this article.Conclusions and Impact: Implementation of the SPREC is expected to facilitate and consolidate international multicenter biomarker identification research and biospecimen research in the clinical Biobank environment. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 19(4); 1004-11. ©2010 AACR.

The first version of the Standard PREanalytical Code (SPREC) was developed in 2009 by the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) Biospecimen Science Working Group to facilitate documentation and communication of the most important preanalytical quality parameters of different types of biospecimens used for research. This same Working Group has now updated the SPREC to version 2.0, presented here, so that it contains more options to allow for recent technological developments. Existing elements have been fine tuned. An interface to the Biospecimen Reporting for Improved Study Quality (BRISQ) has been defined, and informatics solutions for SPREC implementation have been developed. A glossary with SPREC-related definitions has also been added.

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Potato dihaploid PDH55 (Solanum tuberosum) is exclusively euploid (2n 24) but apparently contains and expresses DNA from dihaploid inducer WP48 (S. phureja). Genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) suggested 1VP48 DNA incorporated stably into PDH55 by somatic translocation. This finding has two important implications. Firstly, the long-held implicit assumption that euploid dihaploids produced by dihaploid inducers are pure S. tuberosum seems incorrect. This may complicate meiotic, genetical and molecular studies involving potato diliaploids. Secondly, if such translocations are not rare, the phenomenon may offer a novel way to introduce useful traits directly from wild dihaploid-inducing species into S. tuberosum.

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Ribosomal gene (rDNA) probes have been used to assess genomic changes in plants of (1) S. tuberosum cv Desiree subjected to slow growth and (2) S . tuberosum cv Golden Wonder recovered from cryopreservation . Restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) were detected in two out of 16 DNA samples extracted from plants derived from slow growth, control plants did not show RFLP differences . Plants recovered from cryopreserved shoot-tips of Golden Wonder were unchanged in their ribosomal gene RFLP profile compared to the untreated controls . The use of rDNA probes as tools to assess stability, and the possible detrimental effects of slow growth, somaclonal variation, cryoprotectants, and freezing injury are discussed .

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